BB#1:Meeting BB

Arrival in the Med: 15/7/2010

The long haul flight was surprisingly easier than expected and we hit the ground running. After over 35 hours of travel, we caught the 12.30 bus from Trieste (Italy) to Izola, a small coastal town in Slovenia. Everything went according to plan, with all connections on time and a seamless transit across all borders. Only a massive Italian flag atop a heavy stone building indicated we had crossed into Slovenia, but the countryside did reflect a subtle national difference, with lush green pastures and gentle hills. I could sense the warmth of the people and liked it instantly. It was interesting to see how everyone in the crowded bus struck up a conversation with whomever was seated next to them and the slowly winding 33 km ride was filled with the background hum of soft Slavic tones and laughter. It wouldn’t happen in Australia. This is why we travel, to appreciate the differences.


When you are exhausted after travelling half way round the world in a very confined seated position, things can appear a little tarnished. Such was our first impression of the Sydney 46 yacht we had bought in Slovenia, sight-unseen off the internet. The photos on the internet had been taken in her hey-day, when the blue hull still shone new like and everything still worked. She was undoubtedly a beautiful boat once-upon-a-time, but a few years of neglect had buried that quite deeply. Now we found only a sad and faded memory of her former glory. Yes, it was a bit of a letdown - one of those empty holes you feel in the pit of the stomach – and our leaden spirits sank deeper as the pictures in our minds were replaced with reality. Still neither of us showed this disappointment to the former owner’s representative as he showed us around the boat, but we tried instead to resurrect the shiny pictures we might uncover, given a bit of work. Given a lot of work! Only later in the crisp white sheets of our motel room did we admit to one another our true feelings, but even then, we tempered our views with excuses of exhaustion.



OK, so her blue hull was faded, cracked and crazed and could stand a respray. But apart from that, everything else was more or less as we had expected. We knew she would be grimy or mouldy down below decks and need a good scrub from bow to stern. The flexible water-bladders had long since perished but we had factored new ones into the equation. We expected to have to install a bow-roller and anchor winch, plus get a 25kg anchor and 100 metres of chain, as racing yachts don’t have this weight on board. Nor do they have holding tanks in the head, so that was on the list to install. And the fact that the toilet was so putrid you needed to wear a gas mask to approach it and all the old plumbing stank like a sewer, well, we had half-expected to remove and replace all that as well.








The list went on, everywhere you looked.

Back in our earlier ignorance, we had calculated we would be two days on the hardstand, then five days in the water before our departure. But the floorboards in the cabin sole were badly pitted and water stained, so stripping the old varnish off and giving a good hard sand, then applying 3 coats of polyurethane seemed like a necessary precursor to all other jobs.




Somewhat of a cosmetic ‘face-lift’, but one that would make the cabin a much happier abode. So we removed everything off the boat (down the 5 metre high ladder) and stowed it in the box-trailer/container that came with the purchase (already chocker-block with the remaining 20-plus sails and gear that was not on board.) One lucky find in the trailer was a substantially beefy air-conditioning unit, which we hoisted up on board and set up to help avoid the melt-down of working in a 38 degree heat-wave.

At this point, we still had no fridge, no working stove to make a cup of coffee, no water on board apart from the drink bottles and buckets we carried up the ladder each day. Our living area shrank to only the forward cabin. This we sealed off from the rest of the boat to keep the dust out, using sheets of white plastic that we salvaged from the rubbish bins. This heavy-duty plastic is used to wrap up the brand new boats that arrive here by truck almost daily. We had contemplated moving off the boat during this process, especially to avoid the toxic fumes of the polyurethane, but the hotel which we had booked for our first night in the country was now full, as were all other places nearby. Ah, tourist season. So it was ‘camping’ out on board for us. We didn’t have any bedding, pillows, plates, cups or anything, so hired a car and braved the right-hand-driving to go shopping to nearby Koper.

Where we are, here in the marina at Izola, it is highly likely that such things are available, but being unable to speak the language, or even identify most stores, we were struggling. For all the tools, hardware, marine equipment, kitchenware, bedding, etc we needed, Koper was the place to go. The Marina office staff told us it was the most “modernist” shopping centre in the whole Northern region, only recently opened. It had large supermarkets, (“Spar”), hardware stores like Bunnings (“Obe”), plus various other specialty shops for electrical goods, bedding and homewares (even “Harvey Norman”). Best of all, it was air-conditioned! We even managed to find a good eatery for lunch and for dinner too, given that the expedition took the whole day. And luck, or the angel of haphazard no-map navigation was with us, because we somehow found our way in and out of the maze of fly-overs and daisy-loops to get on the right (and mostly remembered to stay on the right) roads there and back.
Life became much more pleasant with a pillow and sheet and towel. Ah, the simple things.




Izola

There is a laneway thru the middle of the marina leading to fairyland. Painted wooden booths display cheap clothing, beads, and walls of colourful footwear suitable for pebble-beach bathing.




There is also one of the ubiquitous ‘gelataria’, with rows of rainbow-flavoured ice-creams which Das finds harder to walk past. During the day, pedestrians amble back and forth; mothers with prams, kids on scooters, cyclists, and even unhelmeted riders of motorbikes scoot by. In the cool of the evening many more promenade the seafront and the amusement park rides start up.


There is a big yellow inflatable slide that looks far too steep a descent for small children to fling themselves down. Old-fashioned dodgem cars, like I haven’t seen since I was 7 or 8 years old, still have squealing girls colliding head-on with the boys in a pre-pubescent mating ritual. There is a series of enclosed trampolines where youngsters can enjoy gravity-defying leaps on stretchy bungie cords, twisting and spinning and turning back-flips to the delight of their parents. Loud Western music distorts the air, even though the English lyrics are just unintelligible noise for most of the locals. I guess they like the rock beat. Further down, a traditionally-costumed South American man with long black hair aspirates lovingly over bamboo pan-flutes, wafting hauntingly rounded melodies into the air.



Our evening strolls are something to look forward to after long hot days spent eroding our endless job lists. We eat a simple, inexpensive meal at a nearby outdoor restaurant where they know us by name.





A large bowl of salad costs about $2.50 and a glass of wine a dollar. The food is exceptionally fresh and tastes more ‘real’ than any I can remember having eaten since childhood. The peaches from the local street market are unbelievably succulent, as if just picked off a real peach tree. It’s a delight to stop and buy a couple of peaches, nectarines, plus a bunch of purple or green grapes for the next day’s breakfast. Gradually we are becoming more self-sufficient, bringing small portions of food on board, enough for one or two meals, which is all that will keep without refrigeration. It means less time out, which means more jobs crossed off the list.

We have the pressure of a deadline, Maria’s arrival from Melbourne on August 1st, which is approaching faster than we can possibly be ready for. Never mind the imagined few days on the hardstand; we have been up for nearly three weeks. We keep going back to the office and extending our stay. They are happy about this of course, as the ‘meter is ticking’. It costs about half as much to remain on the hard as to be in the water, so we keep climbing the ladder each day. But we make the resolve to have the travel lift launch us the day before Maria arrives, no matter what.

One of the biggest challenges we faced was to work out a once-off shopping list for all the things we needed for the boat. Back in Oz, Das had found an on-line ordering site for a place called “Nautimarket”, that sold everything from nuts and bolts to dinghies and outboards. We spent hours poring over their on-line catalogue and putting together an order. It was important to get everything we might need, because there was no going back for a minor item such as the right sized cable joiners or battery terminals if we overlooked them. Without transport to Koper we couldn’t just nip down the road and pick up these things and the local chandlery was very lightly stocked.

Finally, we thought our order was complete, including a special deal on combined outboard motor and inflatable dinghy, 100 metres of anchor chain, 25 kg delta anchor, toilet, holding tank, 2 x 120 litre water bladders, a desalinator (fresh water maker), 3 x 100 amp gel batteries, a battery charger, invertor, etc. etc…. it all came to around 15 grand, but we had factored this into our budget when we bought the boat (and, as always, the good news is we only have to pay for half each!) In fact, they gave quite sizable discounts on most things, so we did get good value for our money.

We placed the order on-line and then rang to see when it might be delivered. Their warehouse was about 100 km away in a small town called Carlino in Italy. Well, it turned out delivery was coming by camel and might arrive sometime in early August. There was no choice if we wanted these things installed prior to going in the water, other than to hire a van and drive to Carlino and pick them up ourselves. We found a fairly large Avis rental with unlimited kilometres (which was necessary, the number of times we got lost – yes, we went off without a map again!) But we got all the goodies back to the boat before dark and spent several hours winching everything up on board. It was like Christmas!!! So many new toys! No matter that we didn’t get much sleep that night; we could at least install the toilet now.




And the water bladders – oh, the excitement of seeing that first spurt of water come gushing out of a tap over the sink – not to have to haul water up and down the ladder constantly – such luxury.

We winched the 100 metres of glavanized chain up to the foredeck and fed it down into the bow through the new anchor winch, only to discover – the 10mm links didn’t fit the gypsy! Aaargghhh! Assumption: DIN766 is the standard throughout Europe; don’t bother taking the gypsy with us to Nautimarket; of course it will be standard, of course… oops. To ass-u-me makes an ass of u & me...




So, hire another car and drive another 200 odd kilometres back out to Carlino to return it.



The local chandlery ordered some replacement chain in for us the next day. We carted this out to the dock, marked it all carefully at 20m intervals, using small rubber ‘peanuts’ of different colours that wedge between the links – started feeding it back on board – only to find, wrong size again! Noooooo!! How could that be? So pull it all out again, back to the chandlery to get a replacement, again. Three goes to get it right.

The day before launching, we had a small dodger fitted - not a brilliant job, but at least some protection over the companionway.






Launch day: a major spectator event with somewhat disconcerting comments about her not having splashed her toes in the briny for over 2 years! Oh my, will she float? Will she go?



But everyone is smiling proudly as she is lowered gently into her long missed medium and the sea welcomes her back, just exactly to her clean waterline, despite all the extra weight she is carrying. Then the slings are released and we start the engine. It coughs and splutters a few times, then bursts into life, a healthy growl of complaint for the years of disuse. Everyone claps and cheers. We have checked all systems thoroughly; pulled apart the gear/throttle lever which was completely ceased, so it now responds (albeit rather stiffly) to being pushed into forward and we begin to move out of the dock.

“Let’s take her for a little spin round the bay,” Das suggests. I shake my head at this premature adventurousness. We head toward the floating concrete pontoon at the end of the marina arm which we have been allocated to tie up on for a couple of days.

Meanwhile, another yacht has come in and tied up on the same pontoon, leaving just enough room for us to come in behind him.

Das throttles back to slow us down, and then, the unthinkable happens – the engine coughs apologetically and dies. We are moving quite fast, heading toward the other yacht. Das grabs a rope then tells me to take the helm and head for the dock, as slowly as possible. Where are the brakes?

A few seconds later, he jumps, wraps the rope around a cleat on the dock and we slew to a stop, millimetres behind the other yacht’s stern, where all crew are standing round uselessly. The rope jerks our bow into the concrete dock, making a loud thud as she hits and gouging a painful line of white into the blue hull, thankfully only a flesh wound. We console ourselves by the fact that this extra scrape blends in with all the rest; she is not pristine and needs that new paint job all the more now.

But here we are, in the water at last, with Maria arriving tomorrow, with an engine that doesn’t go. And we are very aware that Maria has flown half-way round the world to go sailing in the Med, not to sit and watch us repair an old boat. However, the weather is beautiful and Izola is not an unpleasant place to be. A few days’ sight-seeing from a relatively comfortable base is not too bad. But for us, the pressure now was the cost of sitting in the water – we certainly hadn’t budgeted for an extra grand a week of marina fees.

Luckily it turned out that the engine problem was only water in the fuel, as the fill-cap, which is situated in the cockpit floor, leaked. We removed the tank and had it cleaned and patched up a couple of small holes in it and everything worked fine after that. So Maria only needed to hang around 'on land' for 4 days before going sailing which was not too bad. She spent a couple of days playing tourist, one day going to the nearby town of Piran, one day taking the bus to Trieste to do some bargain shopping for Italian leather boots, and generally enjoying the weather.

Piran



Typical Med style sunbather in Piran


She also helped scrape the old name ("Bohemia Express") off the sides of the boat and put the new name on ("Blue Bohemia").